Moments
by LeonaWriter
Summary: Where I put my FMA oneshots. Mostly post-series so far, but there are some set during. All so far involve Edward.
1. Umbrella, Doppleganger

FMA Drabbles

AN: Just a small collection of short moments. Possibly but unlikely to be related to one another. Usually manga-based, with very little anime at times when I feel like it, mostly just to use the travel-to-earth-which-is-on-the-other-side-of-the-Gate thing.

---

Umbrella

On the steps to the East City monument not too far from where, almost exactly two years ago, he had lost a fight and Al had almost lost a lot more, Ed sat, staring into his automail hand, which was covered by its rain-soaked glove.

He sighed, not knowing precisely how long he had been sitting there. They had only really been back in East by chance, but chance had decreed that it be so very close to that day back then. Memories of that time fell upon him like the rain.

Nina and Alexander, no longer recognisable alive or dead, killed in an alley. Soldiers destroyed. Since then, so many, many people. . .

Lost in thoughts and memories as he was, he didn't notice the presence approaching him, or that the rain had suddenly stopped. The presence sighed softly.

"Edward, just how long have you been out here?"

Ed started, looked up. Caught sight of a blue military Amestris uniform on a familiar figure. Roy Mustang blew out a breath that became visible in the chill night air.

"Never mind. Forget I asked. Get up, Fullmetal. Unless you want me to drag you back in – and stay under the umbrella. You need it just as much as I do."

Ed stood, reflexively obeying the commanding voice of his superior officer. Shoved his hands deep into trouser pockets, and started to walk.

"I said under the umbrella, Fullmetal. We don't need you getting rusty, do we?"

Insulted by the comment, he hesitated just long enough for Mustang to catch up to him, and they both walked back. Not following the man, he told himself. Just heading in the same direction.

----

Doppelganger

(AN: An AU from post-Conqueror of Shambala)

Edward clambered his way free of the rubble and wreckage made from the destruction of the gate on this side and his and Al's – his Al, not the other one – return to Germany. As soon as he was free, mostly thanks to his new automail arm given to him by Winry only such a short time ago. Only a few feet away he could see his little brother heaving out a relieved sigh, an accomplished and happy smile on his face. Together, as soon as they saw each other again, the burst out into laughter of relief and joy for being together again. Maybe they were stuck on this side of the gate, but even if there wasn't a way back to their world, at least they weren't alone.

The sound of coughing distracted them suddenly, causing them to jump and put their defences up once more. Ed sat up, pushing Al back down quickly so that if whoever it was who was still there.

"All right, who the hell is... What _the_-! Al?!"

The Al who had been pushed down out of sight sat upright, coming clearly into the view of the blond-haired, blue eyed young man staring at them incredulously from one of the control panels.

"Brother, what is it? What's wrong?"

Ed groaned and put his face in the palms of his hands, a part of him still revelling in the dexterity of his automail, but mostly with, quite simply, the starts of a headache.

"...oh brother..."

"What?" Al, confused, looked around. On his second glance, he caught sight of the same person his brother had seen, who was currently staring at him wide eyed. "Huh?"

Ed sighed. "All right, here goes... Al, meet Alfons Heidrich. Alfons Heidrich, meet my brother – Alphonse Elric." He paused, trying to think of something, anything, really, else to say. Eventually he gave up and groaned again. "Oh boy. This is going to get confusing."

---

AN: The first one was inspired by a number of things. Including the song 'Under my umbrella' and the fact that both Ed and Mustang have good reasons not to be out in the rain for too long ;D The second one. . . mainly because I've seen so much fanart around the place with both Als in it at the same time. Which is, needless to say, impossible in canon post-CoS. Thus the confusion AU.


	2. Another Brother

FMA Moments 2

Huge spoilers in these, if you hadn't already guessed. For the end of the anime series, mainly.

---

Another Brother

The occupants of the long-empty ballroom of the dead city watched as Envy – now revealed to be Edward Elric's older half-brother – threw himself into the portal that the gate had created, shouting out for it to take him to the place where his father Hohenheim was.

Edward supposed he should be at least annoyed when the homunculus shifted his shape into that of his own form, calling for the gate to take him to 'that bastard, his father' in Edward's own voice, but it was enough to know that Envy was going to be gone – from Amestris, and his life – and then by that time the gatelings had been pulling him further, faster, form shifting to that of a great, blue-green serpent.

The gate was just closing when Ed thought that he might have caught the faint signs of one last, indistinguishable transformation.

Events carried on.

_A few months later. . ._

At a London house, someone was knocking at the door. Resigning himself to the temporary role of secretary come butler since his father was occupied in the study with his research, which he would likely not come out of but for something devastatingly dire, Edward used the crutch to help himself to limp over to the door and then open it, wishing with a certain amount of foreboding that nineteen-twenties Earth era doors had catches.

Faced with an all-too familiar face that, although seen only briefly had been etched into his memory, smug smirk and long golden curls included.

In lieu of the tempting option of simply slamming the door on Envy's face, his expression instead settled into a familiar scowl.

"Oi, you back there," Edward called out to the only other resident of the house. "My long lost and murderous half brother's come for a visit. Mind much if I kill him?"

His simple statement and question elicited the response of, at first, silence, quickly followed by a bout of coughing with a number of crashes shortly after, all of which caused Envy's smirk to widen.

"Edward. . ."

Apparently not, it would seem. But it'd been worth a try.

---

AN: Inspired by a picture I favorited on Deviantart by Snailtamer, where Envy - in his Elric form - is leaning against the doorway, just so, with such a smirk. The picture had dialogue and a follow-up pic, but I didn't have them on hand at the time I was writing this, so they aren't saying anything near the same things. In Envy's case, nothing at all x_x

I am contemplating whether or not to write some more in this storyline. If you like it, send me ideas - no yaoi or anything squicky like that, they're brothers - or links to art where the two aren't beating the hell out of each other!


	3. Another Sign of Maturity

FMA Moments

Another Sign of Maturity

---

After a long and drawn out verbal report to the Colonel, Edward Elric sighed and slouched in his chair, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Mustang shook his head and leaned back.

"Was that all?" he asked.

Ed nodded once.

"Yeah. I think we got the last of them out by that point. Not much more we could've done by then, anyway..."

Mustang cut him off with a gesture. It was obvious that both boys were suffering from various degrees of what had come to be known as 'Elric guilt depression', for which neither would truly accept the help of any other than their brother. At least this time, the incident really hadn't been their fault.

"I think I understand the situation, Fullmetal. Or at least as well as I'm ever going to." To illustrate his next point, the Colonel slid a hand through his hair. "Honestly – the number of stunts you keep on pulling. . . at this rate, I'm going to be getting gray hairs."

Lifted slightly out of his stupor, Ed snorted.

"Well, you did say you wanted to be taken more seriously for a man in your rank."

. . . Which had, of course, prompted Lieutenant Hawkeye to draw whisker marks on his face when he had suggested facial hair. Not what he had been after, and it had taken weeks to get off.

He raised an eyebrow at the idea given him by his subordinate. It was a possibility, but...

"Not a chance, Fullmetal. Your usual escapades give me enough gray hairs without you actually trying."

Ed smirked widely and threw a mock salute at the Colonel, dismissing himself.

Roy supposed that he should feel worried, far more worried than he actually was, when the elder Elric brother started to talk to his team a lot more than usual. . . sometimes eliciting laughter from his subordinates.

He should have expected that first slew of practical jokes. He really should have.

---

AN: Continuation of the official omake of one volume, where Mustang says he isn't being taken seriously due to his youth, so he wants facial hair to make himself look older. Hawkeye ends up drawing cat's whiskers on his face in marker :P


	4. Better the Devil you Know

FMA Moments

Better the Devil you Know

AN: Because I saw something similar, but wanted it done in my style; i.e., not slashy. Mostly manga. Envy written with anime-verse in mind.

----

Edward Elric was tired. He was also hurt, aching, hungry, thirsty, and several other things besides. All of which added up to the one single fact that he was well and truly Pissed Off.

The one real downer to this was that he couldn't do a single thing about it.

Stuck in an abandoned warehouse, tied up to a post, his arm taken away from him and without anything to use to draw up an alchemic array the regular way, he was utterly defenceless. Really, his only method of attack was his mouth, and that had gotten him nowhere useful damn quick. The last time he'd insulted one of his captors, he'd ended up with a sore face from a backhand compliments of a guy who didn't look like he should be allowed to be that strong.

It had all started as a low-grade mission, assigned to him by the Colonel. Unfortunately, the guys who'd sent the bastard the information hadn't known enough themselves, and there had been more terrorists where he and Al'd been sent to than there should've been. They'd been able to capture him, but not before he'd been able to tell Al to go back to Central and tell everyone else what was going on.

Too bad he hadn't known that these guys simply had a thing for State Alchemists. As in, a Scar type thing. Though unlike Scar, they didn't just go for the kill, and there was more than one of them. Not to mention the lot of them seemed to just be psychos, not having any real reason for their hatred – or, at least, none that they would tell him. Which seemed pretty damn stupid from Ed's point of view.

The pure and simple truth was that the guys just a few meters away talking while playing some variant of poker were only the mindless goons of this other guy Ed had heard them all talking about at some point or other. Though from what Ed had heard, none of them were all that intelligent.

There was a loud creaking a way away from where he was tied up, and the men stood just as the door slammed, abandoning their game.

"Master!"

"You're back already..."

"Of course I'm back! It hasn't been that long – besides, I was told you'd been causing some trouble. Where's the alchemist? The note I got said he was the short one."

Ed had to bite his lip hard to refrain from bursting out into a rant at that – he needed to keep his wits about him for this one, not blow his top off when he couldn't even back up his words.

Absently, he heard the men coming over to where he was, discussing something. Belatedly, his mind realised that what they were talking about was what they would like to do to him. He only really understood this because he recognised most of them as things he listed off in his head as what _he'd_ like to do to anyone who called him _short_.

Except that these guys were talking about them coldly, laughing, not hot headed, just matter of fact. . . and plain freaking him out. The last time he'd heard anyone talk like that – especially about him – was. . .

"And so here he is..." The man was crouching down in front of him, face almost level with his own and so close that he could smell bad aftershave. "I've heard a lot about you. The Fullmetal Alchemist."

The man laughed, and the others laughed along with him, like the morons they were. Ed glared. The man smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"They said he was the shortest alchemist ever to be let into the military, but I never really believed it until now. . . I can't believe he nearly took out the twenty of you!"

The men shifted around nervously. Ed dearly wished that he could honestly delude himself with the idea that it was due to his murderous scowl at being called short twice now.

"Uh, boss? It wasn't just the little guy-" this time, he did think he saw someone twitch, 'cause that was three times, "-it was this great big guy too, he was wearing armour and everything! We couldn't hold up against both of them for all that long, and it took a while for the rest of us to get here-!"

Their leader didn't even look away, but his expression showed Ed that if he had wanted to move more – maybe if he hadn't lost so many men already – then the one who'd spoken would have had far more done to him than a knife in the leg.

Ed's eyes widened. For perhaps the first time since he'd been trapped here, it all seemed that much more real. Funny, that. For him, transmutations and homunculi were almost everyday obstacles, but human terrorists with human, non-alchemic weapons were a whole different kettle of fish. It wasn't what he was used to, and he wasn't sure that he was going to be able to get out, and it scared him, and Ed didn't like being –

_Clang_.

The door slammed hard against the wall, sticking there due to the sheer strength of the person who had shoved it open. The person themself was barely visible in the dim light, but it seemed like they were wearing dark clothes, had long hair, and. . .

"Howdy, y'all – Fullmetal Shrimp!"

Ed started to choke, eyes bugging out.

"Envy?! What the damn hell are _you_ doing here!"

"Eh? What's that a way to greet the guy who's gonna be your rescuer?"

"Rescuer?!" In the confusion and anger that he was feeling at the sight of the homunculus getting nearer and nearer, he had almost forgotten where he was and what he was doing there. The rest of the men standing around him were watching the two banter back and forth like it was a tennis match or something. "The last few times I've seen you, you've wanted to _kill_ me!"

Envy tilted his head to one side, putting a hand to his hip.

"Sheesh. I only said that once, and I was _joking_, shrimp."

"Like hell you were!" Ed raged. "And don't call me shrimp!"

By now only a few paces away, Envy laughed.

"Oh, but it's so _fun_. And I was serious, y'know. You're too important a sacrifice to be thrown away that easily." Ed's eyes narrowed, but the homunculus turned back into his usual sadistic self straight after, clapping his hands in merriment. "This should be _good_..."

The men hesitated for a fateful second at the clap, likely remembering their earlier fight with Ed and Al where that would be all the brothers needed to get a weapon or incapacitate one or more of them. As it was, Envy didn't even need to use any alchemy other than what was gifted to him by his homunculus form; that is, his natural flexibility, shape shifting ability and inbuilt sadism.

Ed flinched and winced at the sounds of the resulting fight, almost on purpose keeping his eyes closed but unable to turn off his hearing. He might not have liked those guys, but he'd never wanted to have them dead.

A while later, hearing still ringing, his head was tilted up. Slowly, his eyes opened only to be greeted with cold violet ones bordered with green.

"Oh... so you are awake still, after all. Almost thought you'd gone to sleep just then. You hit your head or something?"

Envy hit Ed's head lightly, but that was all he needed to get properly awake and angry once again.

"What the hell was that for?"

"Eh – whatever. You ain't dead."

Envy disappeared from his line of vision for a moment or two, and then he could feel his bonds being cut. Instantly, he got unsteadily to his feet, leaning against the pillar for support as he did so. He was glad of this as, a few seconds later, his automail arm came racing towards him. He was only just able to catch it with his left hand.

"All right! That's me done here, I guess. The rest of your lot should be here soon, so it's not like I have to stay around or anything. Places to go, y'know."

And with that, he left, leaving Ed alone in the warehouse that now stank not only of sweat, mould and rust, but also of blood.

Less than half an hour later, Al and the others arrived, the bastard colonel unsurprisingly in the lead. Somehow, this made him feel better. Much, much better than seeing Envy. Not that he'd ever tell the bastard that, of course.

Some of the newer guys and those who didn't know him as well as Mustang's inner circle did looked at him askance, talking amongst themselves about how he couldn't be human – surely he couldn't be, he'd killed all those men, with just one arm? One non-automail arm? Mustang's group themselves ignored or glared at them, though.

Even so, Ed wouldn't meet anyone's eyes until his brother found him. They might have been executed anyway, but he couldn't help but feel that it was his fault that they were dead _now_.

"Come on, Fullmetal. Let's get you to a hospital."

Ed nodded, only half aware of what had just been said. Only later did he realise that the colonel hadn't called him short, and by that point it didn't matter so much.

---

AN: ... Sheesh. Originally, that was meant to be a tad bit more lighthearted, or at least not as horror-genre towards the end. Oh, well... whatever works. I had fun with Envy. He's real fun to write.


End file.
